The story behind Dandelion & Opal

I will admit, I have never read the Bible in its entirety. However, I was raised by my grandma, who did read it faithfully, and told me about the stories, and the scriptures. I had a rough childhood, and she always told me that there was a plan for me. I was here for a reason. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “"plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

I thought I had found that future, finally, after a pretty rough road. I had created a life that I was happy to wake up in, day after day, working hard to share my passions for dance, teaching, and instilling confidence in my dancers, and going to bed feeling completely fulfilled each night. I LOVED my dancers, and my dance family.

Then, in one single solitary moment my life came crashing down around me. It’s not to know what made it occur, but just that it did. In those mind numbing days after, when I was just going through the motions, I did what I often do, and put a new series on the tv to have some background noise while I did some tasks in the home. What started as a tv show to erase the silence, became a mantra that I wear on a bracelet still to this day.

“I am here, send me.”

The character explains that she sees her job as a calling. I’ve always deeply felt that way about dance. And it seemed to me, in this horrible time of my life, that no matter how hard I fought it, or denied it, my current status was changing. And also in that moment, I felt that I had nothing else to do but to surrender, and to tell the LORD that I too was here, so send me.

Kevin Roberts

Send me, LORD, where You know I am needed.

I begrudgingly went on with this new chapter of my life with a million knives stabbed in my heart. An aching feeling in the pit of my soul that, unfortunately I can describe well. It’s the same feeling that you have when someone dear to you has passed, and you wake up in the morning with the harsh realization that comes rushing back that your life has changed forever.

I can’t remember exactly when, but a small lightning bolt struck in the depths of my mind. So quickly in fact, that its brilliance burned itself out just as quickly as it came to me. That thought was to start an online dance studio. Then it was gone.

So when the dust settled in this new chapter, now nearly 2,000 miles away from everything that felt like home, I got bored. I started looking for dance instructor positions as I did in the past. But this time, as quickly as the excitement of finding a new group of students or dance studio came on, it left at the speed of light. After that first interview, that first phone call, that first audition, I knew in my heart that it wasn’t the right fit. In fact, after one of the last interviews I had attended from a recent job posting for a ballet instructor, and after teaching the audition class, and really hitting it off with the director, she said “I just love you, I wish we had an opening for a ballet instructor at this time…” I remember getting in my car, and bursting out into laughter. Finally I leveled with the LORD. “Ok, I get it. I’m finally picking up what You’re putting down”

And I can imagine the LORD, probably looking down exhaustedly at me, hands and arms flailing out in an outburst saying, “Finally! You told me to send you… How many roadblocks do I have to send?!”

And so, Dandelion & Opal was born.

It’s my way of continuing my passion for teaching to the whole person, NOT just the dancer. My way of extending through the interweb so that more students can experience the healing, and amazing benefits of dance, not just the ones that are fortunate enough to attend in person. It’s my hope that you can feel the love and excitement that I have for this wonderful art form. It is most rewarding for me to see the positive transformation in my students.